


Give Me These Moments Back

by wandasmaximoffs



Series: C'est La Vie, C'est La Mort [1]
Category: Les Misérables - All Media Types
Genre: Funerals, Ghosts, Grief/Mourning, Like Heavy Angst, M/M, ghost!jolras, listen this is really really sad, not for the faint hearted, sad!taire
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-14
Updated: 2016-11-14
Packaged: 2018-08-30 22:31:23
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,026
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8551699
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wandasmaximoffs/pseuds/wandasmaximoffs
Summary: No, being without a corporeal body isn’t so bad. Watching Grantaire, though–-He cries a lot more than he used to. (Enjolras can’t do more than watch.)“It’s to be expected,” Cosette said to him, one day, wrapping her sweater-clad arms around Grantaire's shaking shoulders, whispering quietly into his hair. “You miss him. Of course you miss him. We– Everyone misses him. It’s alright.”He can’t help. He can’t help anymore, he can only watch Cosette try to help him, and that, that’s not good enough.





	

It’s not an altogether unlikable experience, being without a corporeal body.

Enjolras never liked the mortality that came with flesh and blood, but he supposes that’s the point, isn’t it? His heart stopped beating, and stopped pumping blood, and since the funeral his flesh has no doubt started to go the other way, too.

But being–- Being _weightless_ like this, it’s not so bad. He maybe expected transparency, or to float, or something more _ghostly_ than just looking like a very tired man, but that can be forgiven. He’s never been a ghost before.

(It’s not like anyone can see him, or hear him or talk to him to tell him otherwise.)

No, being without a corporeal body isn’t so bad. Watching Grantaire, though–-

He cries a lot more than he used to.

(Enjolras can’t do more than watch.)

“It’s to be expected,” Cosette said to him, one day, wrapping her sweater-clad arms around his shaking shoulders, whispering quietly into his hair. “You miss him. Of course you miss him. We– Everyone misses him. It’s alright.”

But it’s not alright, is it? He made Grantaire promise, way back when they first started dating, that when he felt like this, like–- Like nothing is enough, and that everything is hopeless and like he might be drowning– He made him _promise_ that he’d tell him, and that he’d let him help.

He can’t help. He can’t help anymore, he can only watch Cosette try to help him, and that, that’s not good enough.

 

* * *

 

The funeral wasn’t much better. He was touched by the turnout, had never imagined so many people would mourn him (It’s a good job ghosts can’t cry, because he’s sure he’d have been in worse shape than Grantaire.)

Grantaire tries to read from a crumpled up piece of paper. It has paint on it, which makes Enjolras laugh (Of course it does. Everything Grantaire _touches_ ends up with paint on it. He loves it. He loves him.)

It’s beautiful, with love in every word, a million ways to tell Enjolras that he loves him before they never see him again. Even when he breaks down, and Combeferre takes over, it’s so very _Grantaire_ that Enjolras could swear his throat starts to stick.

(That’s impossible, though, given that he doesn’t really have a throat anymore.)

 

* * *

 

In the months since then, he’s noticed their friends have a sort of Grantaire-rota, not unlike the time he got sober and was withdrawing something _fierce._  There’s always someone in the apartment with him; Sometimes Jehan or Joly will try to coax him out of the apartment, to an art museum or a park and ultimately fail, relenting and curling next to him on the couch.

Combeferre’s methods are more effective, with promises of short walks to the cemetery and then home again.

Enjolras follows them, and when Grantaire falls to his knees in front of his tombstone, he does his best to wrap himself around him, tries to imagine that his hands are tangled in his hair and that he can whisper comforts to him, tries to imagine that Grantaire can hear him and feel him and that his presence means anything at all to him.

(He can’t. It doesn’t.)

 

* * *

 

Sometimes he just walks around the apartment. Can he call it walking? (Does it matter what he calls it?)

He looks at the pictures on the walls, of the two of them, and their friends. He looks at the bookshelves, and wonders absently why Grantaire hasn’t packed all his textbooks and manuals away yet. ( _You know why,_ he thinks, and despairs for their dusty fate.)

He looks at the faded sticky note on the coffee table (He knows why Grantaire hasn’t moved that; He’s always been sentimental, and Enjolras thanks the stars every day that he decided to leave a note before he left on _That Day_ , on their last day.)

He wishes he’d written more notes to Grantaire. He wishes he’d let him paint him more, and gone out with him more and stayed in with him more, and he wishes he’d kissed him more and said _I love you_ more, and–-

–-And thinking about that now won’t change anything. And it won’t dull the ache of regret, either.

 

* * *

 

Grantaire has taken to sleeping on the bathroom floor, and decision that is both entirely beyond him and far too understandable. Of course, he can see Grantaire’s reasoning, knows him well enough to see _why,_ but he still listens in when he explains it to a very frustrated and concerned Joly.

  
“I can’t sleep in our bed,” He whispers, and he sounds broken, “Because it’s-– It’s _our bed_ , but it’s not, because he’s not here and there’s no _us_ anymore. And I can’t sleep on the sofa, because we-- We watched _movies_ on that sofa, and I drew him on that sofa, and Cosette braided his hair once on that sofa. It’s _our sofa,_ except–- Except, it’s _not._ ”

Joly nods, and swallows, and reaches out to rub his back soothingly. “Maybe we could go shopping-–”

 _“No,”_ Grantaire cuts him off before he can even get the sentence out, “No, I–- I can’t–- He-– _Agh._  I can’t just–- Get rid of it. And the memories.” _And him_ goes unsaid, but it still echoes around the small bathroom.

Joly looks as though he wants to argue, but he doesn’t; Instead, he shifts, and rests his head on Grantaire’s shoulder. “Okay,” he says. “Okay.”

 

* * *

 

Combeferre leads the meetings now, too, though they’ve suspended action temporarily. To mourn.

(There’s a picture of him on the wall of the Musain, next to the large chalk board they use to plan and prepare for their various rallies and demonstrations.)

(It’s a nice picture-– He’s smiling, leaning over the railings of a ferry to look at the water; Grantaire is somewhere in the background, smiling over at him, unnoticed. He wishes he could smash it. He wishes he could rid the world of any evidence of the time that Grantaire’s love for him went unknown.

His life is over now, and he wants his legacy to be one of love. He wants Grantaire to remember the _love._ )

**Author's Note:**

> AHHH okay I posted this before and then deleted it because I was worried it was too sad, which it might be? but I put the warnings in the tags, sO :v anyway, I hope y'all enjoyed this & it didn't upset you too badly (I promise this series will have a happy ending :v) as always, feel free to leave comments & kudos!!
> 
> If you have any prompts you wanna see, in this verse or any other, feel free to hmu on tumblr @ jehanprouvaiire!


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